Back to School, When?

I am at times, an impulse person. To make good decisions, one should think things through, pray, and see God’s guidance. However, at the age of 63, I decided to go back to college. Bethel Seminary to be specific. I thought I wanted to learn more about the Bible and possibly get a degree in counseling. At my age I thought I would feel out of place but was gratified to find there were other students in mid-life looking to go a new direction. The lectures were interesting, the papers and assignments challenging. Each professor seemed to feel he was the only one assigning reading pages and homework. I hardly saw my husband as I burrowed down in my studies, feeling overwhelmed. I enjoyed learning, but not the tests and exams. Some I felt comfortable with and did well, others were like a steeplechase with one required to regurgitate back half the text – not a true example of what the student had really learned. Complicated questions requiring mass data are mentally exhausting! I hung in there for a year and a half, proved to myself that I could still get straight A’s, and patted myself on the back for my efforts. Then one day, it was as if the Lord spoke to my heart. “Why are you doing this?” It took me back. I was doing it for the Lord, so I could write better Biblical Fiction, right? For a year and a half, I’d struggled only to reach a point where I had to examine my motives. Was I doing this to serve God or build my own ego? Impressing people that I could go back to college at my age? Would a degree in counseling help me to reach my own personal goals? I wanted to write books. That gentle voice whispered again to my spirit, “I gave you a gift of imagination. Use that for My glory.” God had blessed me with the gift of writing and I hadn’t done much of that in the year and a half I went to Bethel. I was too busy doing assignments! I donated my study books, withdrew from the college and went back to doing what I love, writing books!